Makes changes to the general horror soundscape for a more ominous and subtle atmospheric feel. Removing jarring things that pull you out of the atmosphere, and making it more about creepy ambience and environmental sfx. Heavily inspired by Condemned: Criminal Origins. No longer requires Complete Edition. Works with any mod that does not alter music and ambience.
Description
The aim of this mod is to better retain the horror atmosphere of F.E.A.R in a simple way. Making it more about creepy ambience and environmental sfx, and replacing/removing things that jarringly interrupt the game's well crafted horror ambience. If you've played Monolith's other excellent horror game: Condemned: Criminal Origins, the type of well balanced horror tone from that game is very similar to what this mod is going for. If you prefer subtlety and dread in horror this is for you**
- All 'action heavy' combat music has been either replaced with a more atmospheric ambient track or silenced completely. To me, combat feels more visceral and 'real' without thumping music in the background. Plus sudden action music is jarring and really pulls you out of the horror atmosphere IMO.
- Many campaign music events have had changes like above. (see bottom of description for some examples with obvious spoilers)
- A few slight changes to background ambience, but for the most part it is left unchanged.
- All cheesy horror music accent stabs removed except for a few ones related to Alma.
- (V2) Several new custom mixed tracks using original FEAR ambience.
- (V2) More campaign music events changed/revamped.
- (V2) More combat music changes.
- (V2.1) No longer requires complete mod. Works with any mod that does not alter music and ambience.
- I wanted to keep this as vanilla as possible. The only things non vanilla used are a few unused/lesser used tracks from Condemned, which are usually mixed with a bit of FEAR. These tracks are selected because they fit FEAR's ambience style.
***
Tip: Sometimes when you pause and return to the game or activate the 'talk' key (default T), the environmental ambience sfx will stop playing. This is nothing to do with the mod (this mod makes changes to music files, not sfx) and has been an engine kink since the game's release. To fix this, simply quicksave and reload.
**This mod is for the base game, not the dlcs.
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Campaign Music Event Examples:
Spoilers
- The first time you encounter the Power Armor Mech after lowering the freight elevator there is now no music cue or generic battle music that plays. I found it is more effective to just all of a sudden encounter this boss type character that you weren't expecting rather than have the music loudly swell and make it obvious, and being able to hear the Mech's ever approaching sounds and attacking sounds builds more tension than having battle music playing, drowning it out.
- When Alice Wade is taken by Alma in the elevator, there was originally a more thumping loud ambience, followed by a borderline cartoonish music stab when she 'takes' her. This ruins the moment, so I found it spookier to replace it with more foreboding ambience and an ominous music stab.
- When Norton Mapes is shot and you're hearing his last words, begging you to destroy The Vault, there is this overly melodramatic music that overlaps on top of the already established (and much better sounding) ambient music. It seemed much more effective to get rid of that and just let the ambience stand on its own.
These are just a few examples, there are many more changes like this for campaign events. Some very small and minuscule.
